20 July Plot - Background

Background

Since 1938, conspiratorial groups planning an overthrow of some kind had existed in the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) and in the German Military Intelligence Organization (Abwehr). Early leaders of these plots included Brigadier-General Hans Oster, General Ludwig Beck and Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben. Oster was the deputy head of the Military Intelligence Office. Beck was a former Chief-of-Staff of the German Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH). Von Witzleben was the former commander of the German 1st Army and the former Commander-in-Chief of the German Army Command in the West (Oberbefehlshaber West, or OB West). They soon established contacts with several prominent civilians, including Carl Goerdeler, the former mayor of Leipzig, and Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, the great-grandnephew of the hero of the Franco-Prussian War.

Military conspiratorial groups exchanged ideas with civilian, political and intellectual resistance groups in the Kreisauer Kreis (which met at the von Moltke estate in Kreisau) and in other secret circles. Moltke was against killing Hitler; instead, he wanted him placed on trial. Moltke said, "we are all amateurs and would only bungle it". Moltke also believed killing Hitler would be hypocritical. Hitler and National Socialism had turned "wrong-doing" into a system, something which the resistance should avoid.

Plans to stage an overthrow and prevent Hitler from launching a new world war were developed in 1938 and 1939, but were aborted because of the indecision of Army Generals Franz Halder and Walther von Brauchitsch, and the failure of the western powers to oppose Hitler's aggressions until 1939. This first military resistance group delayed their plans after Hitler's extreme popularity following the unexpectedly rapid success in the battle for France.

In 1942, a new conspiratorial group formed, led by Colonel Henning von Tresckow, a member of Field Marshal Fedor von Bock's staff, who commanded Army Group Centre in Operation Barbarossa. Tresckow systematically recruited oppositionists to the Group’s staff, making it the nerve centre of the Army resistance. Little could be done against Hitler as he was heavily guarded, and none of the plotters could get near enough to him.

During 1942, Oster and Tresckow nevertheless succeeded in rebuilding an effective resistance network. Their most important recruit was General Friedrich Olbricht, head of the General Army Office headquarters at the Bendlerblock in central Berlin, who controlled an independent system of communications to reserve units throughout Germany. Linking this asset to Tresckow's resistance group in Army Group Centre created a viable coup apparatus.

In late 1942, Tresckow and Olbricht formulated a plan to assassinate Hitler and stage an overthrow during Hitler's visit to the headquarters of Army Group Centre at Smolensk in March 1943, by placing a bomb on his plane. The bomb failed to detonate, and a second attempt a week later with Hitler at an exhibition of captured Soviet weaponry in Berlin also failed. These failures demoralised the conspirators. During 1943 Tresckow tried without success to recruit senior Army field commanders such as Field Marshal Erich von Manstein and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, to support a seizure of power. Tresckow in particular worked on his Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Centre, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge to persuade him to move against Hitler and at times succeeded in gaining his consent, only to find him indecisive at the last minute.